


the proper order of things

by tielan



Category: Mulan (1998)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:09:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 169
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	the proper order of things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



There were wolves in the forest.

Yu Sung heard them howling as he reached the crossroads just before sundown.

One of the diverging paths led up to the mountain passes - slippery and difficult at this time of year and only ever used by the trade caravans headed for the peninsula. Another path led along the hill trails, keeping to higher ground before splitting off to the mountain hills where the stonemason communities lived and worked, chipping out the fine gold-speckled granite for the emperor's palaceworks.

The third trail led down to the farmlands of the lower hills, and the villages of the valleys, where a number of noble families held their estates, as they had through the ages, employing servants and craftspeople and farmers and woodspeople to work for them, even as they trained up their sons to battle and their daughters to marriage exchange.

Sung had hoped for employment with the household of Fa Zhou. The old lord was seeking skilled craftsmen to build a shrine he had promised the gods for the safe return of his daughter from the war. Rumour had it, the girl had run away when the Matchmaker declared her unmarriagable and incapable of bringing honour to her family.

Frankly, Sung thought that running away was a stupid way to try to fix that. One didn't bring honour to one's family by disappearing. Then again, one didn't bring honour to one's family by being an unmarriagable daughter, either.

Except that Fa Mulan had turned out to be rather more marriagable than anyone expected. She'd left home - run away, from all accounts - leaving her family in despair and grief in the midst of preparations for the country to go to war. Two years later, the girl had returned not only safe and sound, but in the midst of an imperial caravan bearing missives and gifts from the Emperor himself. Less than a month later, her engagement was announced to Lord Li Shang, a Commander of the Emperor's Army. 

The rumour went that the girl had brought herself to the emperor's notice by disguising herself as a man, joining the army, and being in the squad of soldiers who defeated the leader of the Huns at the Tungshao Pass. Which Sung could have told anyone was preposterous, because the Confucian teachings were quite clear on this: the gods would not reward a woman for not only failing to take her proper place in the harmonious state of society as a wife and mother, but for usurping the moral force of men by joining the army - as though a woman could maintain the order of the world like a man. Her humours and spirits must be all out of balance!

Nevertheless, Fa Zhou was so grateful for the girl's return that he was building a shrine to the dragon guardian who'd watched over her during her travels. And, moral disorder or not, a job was a job to Yu Sung, and not all regions were springing back to economic prosperity after the frugal years of war.

But listening to the wolves howling in the woods above, Sung wished he'd not lingered so long at the wine shop in the last village.

It wasn't the four-legged wolves that he feared so much as the two-legged ones. The wineshop owner had warned him that there were roving bands of masterless men up in the woods now, the ways having grown less safe now that they were no longer regularly travelled by soldiers and military men. And Sung had laughed and shown the wineshop owner his shortblade, assuring the man that he knew how to use it.

Now that he was in the middle of the swiftly darkening woods, Sung felt less brave.

He fumbled for the wineskin he'd bought: a little something to warm his insides and give him courage for the last stretch of the journey. Through the woods and down into the valley with the river, and the village sat just outside the Fa Estate and the innkeeper was good for a bed that didn't hold a man _and_ bedbugs.

If the human wolves didn't get him first.

A twig snapped somewhere behind him. Sung whirled, his gaze searching the shadows for any signs of movement. Nothing there but the grey shadows of the wintry forest. He shook himself and turned back to the path, hurrying on.

Unnerved now, hearing something at every turn, Sung was on edge.

The bandits stepping out from behind the rockfall was almost a relief. The worst had come, at least Sung didn't have to fear anything more.

"Not a good night to be travelling, stranger."

Sung drew his knife. "No worse than any other."

The leader smirked, and the knife that appeared in his had was as dirty as the man's teeth - a dull gleam in the falling eve. "You don't want to do that. All we want is that wineskin and your burden."

He indicated the roll of tools that Sung carried on his back - good strong iron and steel, heavy, and beyond price. The tools of Sung's livelihood, with which he would display his skills to the Fa family and gain his employment for the next few years.

"Those are my tools," Sung told the bandits. "And they are my life!"

"Those tools would be life to us, too," said the leader smiling. "The sale of them would provide us with food enough through the winter."

"Then come take them," Sung snapped, thinking of the time and effort and history of these tools. "And you'll have a few less mouths to feed."

On reflection, he was lucky that they had no archers with them. A well-placed would have ended his life swift and easy.

As it was, it seemed the leader was bored and up for a bit of fun. He dropped into a fight, one on one, warning his men back, and Sung held the short-sword in front of him and tried to remember the few lessons he'd learned back when he was thinking of soldiering, long before he took up an apprenticeship in stone carving.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he watched the bandit leader lunge forward. He swung wildly with the sword, trying to match the movement of the knife, but it was just a feint. The bandit lashed out at Sung's chest, and he leaped back and stumbled as he stepped on a stiff branch and nearly unbalanced himself. Dragging himself up to the laughter of the other bandits, Sung got the short-sword up barely in time to defend against the leader's stab of the knife. But his footing was all wrong and the weight of his pack threw him off--

He staggered, trying to catch at a tree trunk to get a better balance. A shout from one of the bandits nearly distracted him, but he managed to duck the knife swipe of the leader. He wouldn't last long. The bandit was playing with him - he could have closed much earlier - and the sword was no help to Sung at all.

Sung spun, his breath rasping harshly through his throat as he gasped for air. He was nearly defeated and...the earth was shaking.

Earthquake?

No, that was hoofbeats, drumming on the pathway ahead.

Hoofbeats? A rider coming this way?

"Help!" He cried, as loudly as he could. "Bandits, ho!"

He couldn't see who was coming, couldn't raise his head to look at what was happening. But he heard the bright war-cry of someone coming into a fight, and managed to fall back against a large tree, rolling aside as the bandit leader came for him. The man stumbled briefly, then pitched forward with a screech and gurgling sound.

With some surprise, Sung saw an arrow protruding from the man's throat.

_Help! Rescue! Relief!_

He leaned back against the tree and panted in relief as the bandits were dealt with by what felt like an army of fighters - at least two horsemen and one foot fighter, all of them moving together like a well-crafted wagon axle.

Wait, did that horse not have a rider? Sung stared. The roan gelding was lashing out with its hooves, and more than one bandit staggered back with a broken bone before being smacked upside the head by the nimble foot-fighter's staff.

There was a rustle of leaves on the other side of the tree. Fabric caught and tore and someone swore. Then the bandit - big and hairy - had a knife at his throat.

"I should stick you like a pig," he growled, grabbing Sung's shoulder and pitching him forward. Sung flailed and went sprawling with a yelp as he landed nearly face-first on the dead bandit leader. "But all I want is those tools!"

Sung tried to scramble, but the bandit was swiftly on him, pressing down on his lower back so he could cut the pack straps from Sung's shoulders. He felt the slice of steel against his skin and squealed. There was a loud thwacking noise. Then Sung screeched again as the pressure on his back suddenly increased, before the bandit slid to the side and off into the leaves and dirt beside him.

"Are you okay?"

The voice was young, a light, gruff tenor. A slim shadow crouched down beside Sung, and gentle hands helped roll him over. The young man tilted his head to the side, curious as a crow as Sung sat up, groaning and reaching for his shoulder. "The cut on your shoulder looks shallow enough, but your pack strap is ruined."

"Thank you for your help," Sung gasped, his heart still pounding in his chest.

The young man rested one hand on the ground as he turned to look over the two bandits lying to the side, then back up to where his companion was moving among the bandits, pausing here and there to stab with his knife. The man was mature, dressed in the fine clothes of a nobleman, and moving with the fluid grace of a warrior. "You're just lucky that we were on the road."

"I didn't think the bandits would be so bold - not before dark. They said that it should be safe if I went through before it got dark--"

"Unfortunately, they've been growing bolder now that the war is over," the young man got to his feet. "Where were you headed?"

"Down to Sufong village at the edges of the Fa Estate."

Both men paused and a look was exchanged between the two of them before the bigger one said, "We can probably guide you down to the village. We'll have to send up the local constabulary to deal with this anyway."

Sung glanced down at the bandits, then leaned down to pick up his pack. His shoulder twinged with pain, and the young man shouldered him briskly out of the way before heaving it up. "I'll take that. Oof. We'd better put it on Maha for the trip back."

"Not Khan?" asked the older man standing at the top of the hill on the road.

"Khan will be carrying the two of us," said the younger one, with an authority that surprised Sung. "Unless you intend for the wounded man-- Sorry, what's your name?"

"Yu Sung," he said, wincing as he toiled his way up the hill, "at your service for your service done my life."

"Yu Sung can ride Maha back. He's injured, after all."

"And what am I going to do?"

"Walk?"

"Has it occurred to you that it might be better to put him on Khan's back with his pack, and Maha can carry you?" 

"Yes, but Khan is better with-- Oh." The young man considered that for a moment, then went over to one of the horses, and murmured something into its cheek before tying the pack onto the horse's saddle and looping his hands into a stirrup. "Can you ride, Yu Sung?"

"Not very well." But he suffered himself to be hoisted into the saddle like a sack of rice. The horse made a noise that sounded very much like a grunt of dismay.

In contrast, the young man climbed nimbly into the saddle and settled in like he was born there, shifting his bow across his body for better balance. They started off down towards the village together, with the older man walking a little apart and ahead.

Yu Sung was still a little shocked and trying to make sense of what has just happened. Had he really been attacked by bandits and rescued by two soldiers on the road? And was he now riding down into town atop a trained warhorse with his two new friends who hadn't even introduced themselves?

Yes. Yes, he was.

He cleared his throat. "Uh, may I be permitted to know the names of my benefactors?"

A look passed between the two of them. Then the older soldier sighed. "I am Li Shang and that is...Fa Ping."

Yu Sung blinked. Li Shang? As in " _Commander_ Li Shang?"

"Yes."

"Commander Li Shang of the _Emperor's army?_ "

The other soldier snickered, and Li Shang glanced back, giving him a hard look before answering Sung calmly. "Yes."

"And Fa Ping? Son of--" Sung paused. Had he heard that name correctly? Surely not!

"Fa Zhou is my father," said the soldier, his voice light and gruff.

But that wasn't right. It couldn't be right. Because Fa Zhou had no son to carry his sword into battle, which was how his daughter had taken his place, disguising herself as a soldier in the army under the authority of--

Sung looked at 'Fa Ping' - really looked at him. The youth looked back at him with no shyness, no coyness, none of the feminine graces that Sung associated with a woman, let alone a daughter of a noble house - or, at least, what he knew of daughters of nobly-born houses. And yet...something about the way the youth held himself-- No beard - not even a shadow, and a slender lean-ness that could be youthfulness...or could be the frailer body of a woman... Sung tried not to gape. After all, several bandits back on that road sprouted arrows that had come from the bow slung across her...yes... _her_ chest, and he had seen the bruise on the bandit who tried to rob him of his tools...

The moment hung there as they walked out of the forest and onto the road leading down into the village. Sung felt the two of them watching him - their expressions patient and waiting, as though they knew what was going through his head.

Perhaps they did. After all, Sung couldn't be the first to question the rightness of Fa Mulan fighting in the army. Nor the first to benefit from her skills as a soldier, however disruptive the Neo-Confucians might think it to have a woman fighting like a man.

He chose his words carefully. "My thanks, Commander Li, Honoured Fa, for your assistance."

"You're welcome," the commander said.

"You're welcome," said Mulan.

The Neo-Confucians, Sung decided, didn't have the faintest idea.


End file.
